Fall Issue Preview

We’re just putting the final touches on the Fall 2010 issue. Until it arrives, here’s a taste of what we’re serving “Dream Team” by Richard Bauman.

DREAM TEAM

By Richard Bauman

Every football fan envisions an undefeated season for their favorite team. Few have had the power to make their dreams come true. Morris Newburger, however, did it, literally, in 1941

The sports pages of newspapers, and radio sports shows, too, reported the impressive victories of his team, Plainfield Teachers College. And it really was Newburger’s dream come true – since he dreamed it all up.

Newburger worked in a New York brokerage firm and was an avid sports fan, according to his friend and eventual cohort Alexander W. Dannenbaum Jr. One Saturday, after a leisurely lunch, Newburger stopped and phoned the New York Times sports desk and reported Plainfield Teacher’s first win of the season: Plainfield-21, Regency-12. Both teams were as fictitious as the score.

Plainfield’s victory was reported in the next morning’s paper. Encouraged by that unexpected success, Newburger, along with Dannenbaum and others at the brokerage house created perhaps the first “fantasy football” league. . .